Tag: Patriots 2023 roster

Reading the room: Evaluating running backs on Patriots’ roster

Not having Damien Harris on the roster opens the door for a new star to emerge at the Patriots’ running back position.

After the departure of Damien Harris, the New England Patriots have a wide open running backs room behind budding star Rhamondre Stevenson.

Some teams like similar scheme fit running backs, and some like having situational backs who have different roles. Meanwhile, other teams like clones of their top guy so the game plan stays the same.

It’ll be hard to predict just exactly what the Patriots do, but one thing is for sure: They like to have variety and flexibility. This is why we started this series. It was so we could look at the position group with a wider lens, rather than just wanting four running backs on the roster.

Today, we’re diving into what roles the running backs play and why the Patriots philosophically have them on the roster in 2023.

6 moves Patriots can make to nearly double their cap space in 2023

The Patriots already have serious cap flexibility in 2023, but six moves would ensure they have plenty more.

The New England Patriots enter into February with a little over $34 million in salary cap space for the 2023 season. This number, however, can become much larger as the Patriots have multiple ways to make room for new contracts.

The 2023 free agent class isn’t anything to write home about, but there are some good players who could help fill out some holes on the Patriots’ roster.

According to Miguel Benzan (PatsCap), the Patriots could restructure, cut, trade, or extend players in order to make more room. They did so in 2022, borrowing money from 2023’s cap to make room for moves during the season, which is around $13 million per season for moves (such as NLTBE bonuses, practice squad salaries, replacement of injured players, etc.) and around $4 million for the 2023 draft class.

In this article, I used Over the Cap’s salary cap calculator to work through new deals. So some of the below restructures or extensions aren’t going to be exactly what a player or team decides. We went with what the tool allowed us to do. The Patriots could certainly be aggressive and do more than what’s listed, but these are some of the more realistic options.

Since these options are unlikely to all happen at once, let’s go through some likely scenarios that would bring the Patriots’ cap space up to $60 million for the free agency period.